The difference in tech outcomes can definitely be attributed to _European_ conditions, but regulation is extremely country-specific – the _EU_ is not the detriment (e.g. Germany might be notably bureaucratic, but the culture in Sweden differs, and so do frameworks in Poland). EU institutions are out to get the US giants, but startups or scaleups? Out of sight.
There really is comparatively little reward for shooting for the moon though – the fragmented stock markets don't provide great exit opportunities, so less money goes into funding ambitious companies. Then, scaling throughout all of Europe is notably hard, with dozens of languages, cultures, and legal frameworks to navigate. Some of these cultures are more risk-averse, and that's not easy to change. Not to mention English being the _lingua franca_ of business and tech.
I would love Europe to reach the States' level of tech strength, but these are all really hard problems.
Another issue is that modern AI is notoriously energy-intensive.
Because of policy choices over the past several decades, as well as the ongoing war with Russia, the EU is already struggling to provide enough energy for its existing industry. There just isn’t any slack left for a newcomer.
This is a relatively recent (2022) comparison of the Industrial electricity prices including taxes:
Get-rich-quick startups are overrated, and there isn't that much of them anyways, not ones with real staying power.
The most valuable tech companies have long histories, incredibly broad, and deep technological portfolios that go much farther than 'we use the latest frameworks' and/or 'we own the most eyeballs at the moment' and dubious business models that are a combination of spending free VC money to grow and having exploitative business models.
Such companies are certainly represented, in the top 100 list, but I for one am not sad that Europe missed out on them. It's more of a problem that we don't have or NVIDIA, Apple, Intel, Samsung imo.
As for regulation, there are a bunch of US companies that got to where they are by abusing their monopolistic reach by locking out and disadvantaging potential competitors (think of the smartphone, OS and social media spaces), where the swift kick in the butt from European regulators could've come sooner.
There really is comparatively little reward for shooting for the moon though – the fragmented stock markets don't provide great exit opportunities, so less money goes into funding ambitious companies. Then, scaling throughout all of Europe is notably hard, with dozens of languages, cultures, and legal frameworks to navigate. Some of these cultures are more risk-averse, and that's not easy to change. Not to mention English being the _lingua franca_ of business and tech.
I would love Europe to reach the States' level of tech strength, but these are all really hard problems.